In The Latest Round Of The Alec Baldwin-John Krasinski Yankees-Sox Saga, Baldwin Burns Down A Building

Glenn Davis 10:57 am, August 30th, 2011

We've been through a lot with Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski in the name of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry (and, of course, selling New Era products). We were there for verbal threats. For physical violence. For dogs wearing hats. For large-scale pranks. And now, for the penultimate installment in their already-taken-too-far rivalry, we're there for Baldwin burning a building to the ground.

We'd say it starts innocently enough, but we're not sure Baldwin making Krasinski watch him burn a sizable stash of Red Sox tickets over an unspecified video chatting service qualifies as "innocent"...except compared with what happens next, when the tickets prove violently flammable, and we eventually learn Baldwin has inadvertently burned down his entire apartment building. We should say here we enjoyed the spot. We'll get back to that in a bit.

But we should also say this skirted the line of Baldwin nearly doing something that was too bad, even in this obviously fictional world, to derive entertainment from it. For an example of this, check out the opinion some held of one episode of The Office (a show in which, of course, Krasinski stars), wherein Steve Carell's Michael Scott is unable to deliver on a big promise he'd once made to a roomful of kids. In this case - while again, we liked this ad - we can't say we didn't spend any time looking into whether what Baldwin "does" in the above video (had it been real, of course) could possibly be considered an act of terrorism (thankfully, our eventual verdict based on this definition: no).

And with that out of the way, here's why we actually liked it. One, these things have been over-the-top from the get-go, and with each passing installment, it gets harder to keep topping yourself in craziness. Without question, this ad did that. Two, fictionalized Alec Baldwin didn't mean to burn down the building. Three: "Call 912!...It's 911 for rich people!" Four: much respect to Baldwin's ability to laugh at himself ("the man was described as well-dressed but emotionally unstable"). So yes, we enjoyed this just like we enjoyed the last four, and eagerly await what kind of insanity we'll see in the final installment. At the rate we're going, we just hope it doesn't involve Krasinski and Baldwin dueling in Weehawken, N.J., or something.